Integrated circuits (“ICs”) using silicon have dominated the development of electronics. Many technologies based upon silicon processing have been developed over the years. Their continued refinement led to nano-scale feature sizes that can be important for making complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuits. Though many processes have been developed for processing silicon, silicon has an indirect bandgap, making silicon a poor optical emitter. Thus silicon has been combined with other semiconductor materials to make photonic ICs. Examples of other materials combined with silicon include III-V materials, such as gallium arsenide (GaAs). There is a need in the art for improved methods and systems related to photonic ICs using silicon to form photonic ICs.